Page 49 of Main Event

Andi and I are at the kitchen table—investigation files open between us, the remnants of dinner cleared. She sees my face when I look at the screen.

“Brandon,” I say.

I pick up.

His voice is level in a way that doesn’t sound like my brother’s, as if he’s keeping it that way on purpose. He tells me what happened—he came home, someone was waiting, and he’s on the floor of his entryway. He’s okay. He’s staying down until I get there because he doesn’t know if whoever it was is still in the building.

“I’m coming,” I say.

“I already called the police. They’re on the way.”

“I’m still coming.”

I’m already standing. Andi has her hand on my arm.

“Go,” she says. “I’ll call Bill. And Luke—” She holds my eyes. “Don’t touch anything.”

I kiss her once, and I go.

The police are already there when I arrive. Two officers, Brandon sitting on the floor of his entryway exactly where he said he’d be, back against the wall, his face a mess and his right hand cradled in his lap. The condo has been checked. Whoever it was is long gone.

I crouch in front of him.

He looks at me with one eye swelling shut, and something in his expression has passed from devastation into something quieter. The hollowed-out calm of a man who has been hit twice tonight—once in an apartment on the other side of the city, and once here—and is holding both of them with everything he has.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hey.”

“How bad?”

“Nose is broken. Two ribs, maybe three. Hand.” He flexes it slightly and winces. “I’ve had worse.”

He hasn’t. But I don’t say that.

“They were waiting for you,” I say.

“Yes.”

“You went to see Marin tonight, before you came home.”

“Yes.” He looks at his hand. “She confirmed everything. Twelve years with Evelyn. She came to me specifically. She knew about my accident. She knew about Andi.” He pauses, turning his wrapped hand over. “She was paid, Luke. Not just as a consultant. Personally. I was an assignment.”

The hallway is quiet except for the low voices of the officers in the other room.

“She knew what was coming when I walked out,” he says. “Someone was already positioned. They knew immediately.” He looks up at me. “That means she told them. The minute I left, she made a call.”

I sit down on the floor beside him because he’s on the floor and I’m not going to stand over him right now.

“Tell me everything,” he says. “All of it. Whatever you’ve been holding back because of her. I need the full picture.”

“You’ll have it,” I say. “Later. Let’s get you treated first.”

He nods.

An EMT comes through the door. Brandon submits to the examination with the patience of a man who has learned that compliance is faster than resistance. I stay on the floor beside him until they make me move.

Marin is in the hospital waiting room when we arrive. Still in the gray cardigan. She stands when she sees us come through the doors.